An Analysis Of Birthplace And Neighbors

Birthplace and Neighbors are works about wartime rural Poland and were written and filmed in the 1990s. These two documents have similar revelations about wartime Poland. However, the way these cases are presented through two ways bearing witness, Birthplace, and writing history, Neighbors. There are tensions and benefits to both pieces, but they are critical for an understanding of wartime Poland. There are differences in bearing witness is personal and intimacy that writing history does not have. History can be conformational and forced to understand the complexity of the past, and asked bigger questions. Gross uses Jedwane to reveals the complex relations between Poles and Jews. He considers the massacre at Jedwane to dwarf any criminal aspect of Polish Jewish relations. Gross is making a larger case of the history of Polish-Jewish relations and where are the perpetrators and victims. Gross is questioning the image of Poles as sole victims of …show more content…
The cases are similar no wanted their neighbors to know. Even after the war, it was not talked about a fear of harm. It pushes more for the deep root anti-Semitism in Poland during and after the war. Memories of horrendous acts last in the minds of those who witness it, and in the communities, it happened in. The massacre of the Jews in Jedwane preserved through the generations. Gross places Jedwane in the larger context of Polish memory in towns where Jews were murdered, the memory was kept alive. There is a rural memory in Poland of what happened to their Jews. While there are those who deny who is responsible for the massacre in Jedwane the resident know the Jews were murdered by their neighbors.
Gross is using Jedwane for a larger understanding of the "polish awareness to horrendous crime," that runs counter to their collective memory. He wants Poles to understand the complexity of what happened during the Holocaust in